Wadley was sitting on the porch with Ramona. He was still a semi-invalid, and when he exercised too much his daughter scolded him like the little mother she was.
"Keep me here much longer, an' I'll turn into a regular old gossip in breeches," he complained. "I'll be Jumbo Wilkins Number Two, like as not."
"Is Jumbo a specialist in gossip?" asked Ramona. She liked to get her father at reminiscences. It helped to pass time that hung heavy on his hands.
"Is he? Girl, he could talk a hind leg off'n a buckskin mule, Jumbo could." He stopped to chuckle. "Oncet, when we were drivin' a bunch of yearlin's on the Brazos, one of the boys picked up an old skull. Prob'ly some poor fellow killed by the Indians. Anyhow, that night when Jumbo was wound up good, one of the lads pretended to discover that skull an' brought it into the camp-fire light. Some one had wrote on it: 'Talked to death by Jumbo Wilkins.'"
'Mona rather missed the point. She was watching a man slouching down the road toward them. He was heavy-set and unwieldy, and he wore a wrinkled suit of butternut jeans.
The eyes of the cattleman chilled. "You go into the house, 'Mona. That fellow's Pete Dinsmore. I don't want you to meet him."
"Don't you, Dad?" The heart of the girl fluttered at sight of this man who had nearly killed her father, but it was not fear but anger that burned in her eyes. "I'm going to sit right here. What does he want? He's not coming--to make trouble, is he?"
"No. We've got business to settle. You run along in."
"I know what your business is. It's--about Ford."
He looked at her in surprised dismay. "Who told you that, honey?"
"I'll tell you about that after he's gone. I want to stay, Dad, to show him that I know all about it, and that we're not going to let him carry out any blackmailing scheme against us."
Dinsmore nodded grouchily as he came up the walk to the house. Wadley did not ask him to sit down, and since there were no unoccupied chairs the rustler remained standing.
"I got to have a talk with you, Clint," the outlaw said. "Send yore girl into the house."
"She'll listen to anything you have to say, Dinsmore. Get through with it soon as you can, an' hit the trail," said the cattleman curtly.
The other man flushed darkly. "You talk mighty biggity these days. I remember when you wasn't nothin' but a busted line-rider."
"Mebbeso. And before that I was a soldier in the army while you was doin' guerrilla jayhawkin'."